


Scamp/r

by spiderwebdudechild



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Assumed Character Death, Baby Space Pirate, Bullshitting in space, Child Loss, Heartbreak, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Twelve year old lives the anti-Star Wars life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 02:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18714739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderwebdudechild/pseuds/spiderwebdudechild
Summary: During the battle of New York, the worst possible outcome happens, and Tony experiences the devastation of his life. On the other end of the thread that connects him and his lost child, Peter goes on some minor deep space adventures.





	1. Devastation

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will be loosely based around some events that happened in Endgame-the events that show what happened after the battle of New York, in the Avengers tower lobby and all that jazz (yes, that means I shift where some of the people are standing in the scene, whatevs lmao). That is only because it shows those events as canon events during that time. This story, however, erases all events of Infinity War and Endgame, as Thanos isn’t alive to find all the stones. That is part of this story, you’ll find out. 
> 
> There will be a second story that picks up where this one leaves off, as a sequel. I don’t know how long this will be, as I fleshed it out a LOT after I saw Endgame a second time and was thinking about how far into denial I could go :D
> 
> ENDGAME SPOILERS ENSUE

Tony almost wanted to laugh at Loki’s impersonation of Cap. In fact, he let a little smirk show, thinking about how that was usually his impression of Steve himself. Thor killed the fun, slapping the mouth guard onto his face, and watched Loki go from his jackass, comic relief self back to war criminal in an instant. 

When they were in the elevator, all a happy-go-lucky bunch about to go down to the lobby for a (hopefully) fruitful resolution via Alexander Pierce, there was the shared moment of panic when Baby Godzilla attempted to join them. Tony was sitting on the case with the Tesseract inside, thinking about how Peter, his six year old, was probably tucked tightly into the corner of his bedroom, a few floors above them, head guarded by his “fake” Iron Man helmet. Tony never told him that is was a fully functioning model, connected through the hidden AI system to attract a full suit should he ever be in danger. Luckily, he had gotten several updates all summing up that Peter was fine, and in his bedroom. He probably knew something was going on, but he had at least enough common sense to not run towards the danger like his dad did. 

Back to Hulk, he had his little not-fun moment when they all told him to the the stairs. The only way he could fit in there with them was if he turned them into a giant flesh mattress. So they all rode down in silence, continuously glancing at the dent in the silver door, listening to Tony’s playlist that came quietly through overhead speakers. Tony’s only thought was that the volume didn’t do justice for the band playing. He mused about putting volume control on the button panels when he fixes this place up. 

When they exited, Big Green Brucie wasn’t there, so they had some peace for now. To their right, Pierce was with some of his suited goons, to their right. He’d just come through the door, and his face became more expectant upon spotting them, and more disgruntled when he saw Loki. As a group, they met the group a little ways in front of the lobby desk. 

Thor still had ahold of his brother, and that’s when he and Pierce started bickering about what to do with Shithead. Not budging, Pierce ignored Thor’s last statement, and asked for the case. Tony denied. Pierce insisted, being the stubborn government employee he was, and again, was denied. Above him, Tony heard a faint stomping. Jolly Green was making his way to them, probably pissed, as that’s what he did best. 

When Pierce started to get heated, putting on his signature Asshole Expression, a giant green blur burst through the door to the staircase, launching Tony away from the group, and causing the case to fly back behind them. Bruce looked nearly as if he was about to charge them all, but stopped, not knowing who to start with. Everyone jumped and backed away, even Pierce in all his glory. 

Behind the distracted bunch, the case clattered open, and the blue cube that everyone loved got knocked out. It clattered along the floor, landing near Loki’s feet. He glanced victoriously, but cautiously, down at the intense blue glow from it, in all its temptation. Looking at his brother, and the others who literally just kicked his ass, and then back to the cube, he rushedly leaned down, grabbed it in his poorly cuffed hands, and did some portal magic. 

He still needed his staff. He’d prefer to not leave with that, and he could still sense it somewhere close. He teleported back to the floor they just came from, where an elevator was close to arriving. Hastily, he slammed the cuffs on his wrists against the nearest surface, and one cracked off. He grabbed whatever object he could, which happened to be a mostly-metal stool. While he waited for the doors to open and reveal his prize, he spotted the face of a young boy looking to him from behind the counter. He paused his thoughts for a moment to watch his inexperienced and frantic eyes gaze at him. He turned his face away when the elevator opened, and he launched the stool at them. A few of the darkly-clad men raced to him, already having heard of him going missing. One spoke into a device about his whereabouts. He dodged the little guns they had, and had one hand on the case, one on the Tesseract, when he saw yellow coming towards him. As the gray and sparking blue of a cloudy portal closed around him, the yellow that accompanied the young face clutched his side, and they both vanished from the destroyed room. 

 

The men in charge of the staff swore, as they were officially double-fucked. They needed that staff, and Iron Man’s kid just got kidnapped by the not-so-defeated villain they let slip through their hands. Rumlow punched the nearest wall, and swallowed. When both Pierce and Stark descended on his ass, he’d have to leave the country all together. 

“Ran into Loki. He got away with the staff, and the Tesseract, and-”, he couldn’t lie. Stark had cameras everywhere. 

“And? And what? Rogers’s voice was the one speaking to him. Revolting. 

“And the kid.” That was the end of him, for a good bit of time. 

Not an hour later, he lay on the floor, as blows were landing on his face. His vision got worse and worse, like deteriorating camera quality, while blue and red delivered the bruises and drew blood from his face. He paused when a small and cold voice called his name. 

He looked behind him, where Tony was watching a video feed on a hologram in front of him. His face expressed a feeling beyond horror, beyond fear and absolute hate. Not a single person in the room knew what to say, and everyone was in the room. Fury, Pepper, the team, Pierce’s gang, Rumlow and his crew, and a few more Shield agents. They were all looking to Tony, watching him re-experience the kidnapping of his beyond beloved son, every few minutes. Pepper was already in tears, having been close enough to being Peter’s mother, feeling the same singling loss that Tony was subjecting himself to. 

“I’m going home. I’m going to track him down. I’ll find your child, Tony.” Thor was the only one to break the silence, and clasped a strong hand onto his shoulder, gaining him only a glazed and now-tearful look. He didn’t say anything, still. Thor left the room, using the elevator, and a few minutes later, a vertical rainbow beam shone through the floor to ceiling windows. Thor was gone, and he left with determination, as even though he’d only known Stark’s child for a few days, he quite favored him. 

“Get out.” He stood suddenly, and looked between Pierce and Rumlow. 

“Get the hell out. You have no reason to be here, and don’t pretend like you gave two shits about my kid!” His voice grew with each word, and he had that sharp and hot anger in his face that told you his suit was about to be equally pissed. Without a word, knowing it’d only make things worse, all the suit monkeys left, leaving the only welcome ones, Maria and Fury. Fury walked over to him, and put a gentler hand on Tony’s shoulder. His eyes shifted a little to look at him. 

“Thor is gonna find him, and we’ll do our damn best to help.” He didn’t say out loud that Loki would long before try and come back here. He didn’t say that the first place he would go to wouldn’t be Asgard either, where Thor would have to start. He didn’t say that Loki was going to a worst-case scenario place. He was going back to wherever he came from, and although it wasn’t said, everyone knew. 

In the following days, everyone mourned. Silently, slowly, carefully. No one spoke around Tony and his drinks, meals were sparing and silent, and there would be days where Tony sat for hours in silence, on the floor of Peter’s bedroom, knowing that his helmet was now next to useless. He’d been wearing that, and his favorite yellow denim vest, in the footage. He could picture his entire outfit. The gray Star Wars shirt with the rebel emblem, the worn blue jeans, his red and white striped socks. He catalogued every item in his bedroom, every time he went in there. The science posters. The photographs from when he built his own knock off Polaroid camera. All his figures from Star Wars and other franchises he adored. Mace Windu was missing, probably in his pocket. That thought opened the gate for a series of sobs to grab him by the neck and shake him. 

Sometimes, Pepper would join him. They felt Peter in there, all the times they tucked him into bed, and put on his favorite slippers. Peter, as a baby, wore those slippers more than he would even touch real shoes. The slippers had had rabbit faces bad of felt, from Easter. They both looked at his Rubik’s Cube collection, and remembered that they were his first toys, and that cube was one of his first words. He’d go up to everyone he saw and babble it and point at the nearest things, even if they weren’t cubes. Pepper held him as each memory ripped a new seam in him, ones that couldn’t be put back together with a metal suit and charity donations. 

It was three weeks when a day went by that Tony didn’t cry all day. He was always down in the lab, throwing money at children’s causes causes, or making new suits. Arc reactor, after reactor, after new design, after design and design and design. For aircraft, medical gadgets, or something or other. It pained everyone to watch as he fell into a glass box of a life. Clint and Pepper felt the most of his pain, for upfront reasons. They were both parents, so the sorrow seeped into their chests as well. 

There would never be any funeral. Tony refused to go to that area, and after a while, Pepper joined him. They would not put a child’s emergency metal suit into a coffin, and watch as it still be empty. They would not have the sight of pristine white cushioning and polished wood. They would not watch Peter’s toys turn into subjects of therapy. 

They knew that Tony still had hope. Rather, they knew he refused to acknowledge the real possibility of Peter not being alive. He’d held that precious boy every single day, without fail, since the day he was born. The only exception was when he’d been kidnapped and came out as Iron Man. He’d made Pepper CEO, cut out all the trips, and made himself into a stay at home dad, all to stay with Peter. That little life he created, with his developing sass and early need for glasses and habit of sneaking down to the lab to watch his dad. 

Clint eventually went back to his family, but always found a way to know how Tony was doing. His family had never met Tony, but his wife mourned for him. Clint showed her videos of Peter’s dimpled face and the way he showed every bit of Stark intellect, even at his age. Peter could already explain the engineering behind cameras, and alarm clocks, and other simpler things. He played a mean game of Tetris, and played it in real life, when he structurally shoved his toys under couches and coffee tables. 

After two months, Tony and Pepper watched Star Wars by themselves. Nat would sometimes join them. Cap and Bruce left the tower often to do other things, but Nat was here often. She didn’t feel the loss of a child nearly as they did, but she felt the emptiness that was overtaking their life. The silence that you thought you’d escaped, but then it came crawling back, having had one hand around your ankle the entire time. 

After three months, the influx of empathetic letters from parents who’d lost their own children slowed quite a bit. His head swam with the fake memories of kids being taken off life support, or having been missing for years to date, or some other thing that he added to the pool. He became so numb that he could no longer actively feel it, and no longer felt guilty when he couldn’t muster the motivation to read the letters all the way through. 

At night, when Pepper wasn’t there, he’d hold a pillow to his chest, wondering if he’d ever feel the frail warmth and joy that Peter’s body had exhibited. He was six, and still didn’t like to sleep alone. Whether Tony fell asleep in Peter’s bed with him after he trailed off from the stories of his child imagination, or Peter rushed to join him after a storm was too loud, they were an iconic sleepover pair. Tony loved that child more than anything in his life; Peter was the inevitable center of his universe, and it has just collapsed.


	2. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gains some new “friends” and his young memory starts to become muddled for the first time in his life.

The sparking stuff around Loki and himself made Peter’s body tingle. When it went way, he felt sick. Like when he ran around after eating, and his stomach got heavy and gross feeling. When the gray cloudy stuff went away, he still had a hand on Loki’s odd coat, and they were somewhere very dark. There was some overhead lighting, and it glinted on the broken chain hanging from one of Loki’s wrists. In the hand he couldn’t see, Loki held the staff, and the Tesseract in the other. Both shone blue light onto Peter’s rounded, childish face. When he let go of Loki’s coat, to fidget with his hands, Loki looked down at him, and silently pitied him. What a fate, for someone so young. He almost felt bad for him, but there was no stopping what would happen to him. Loki looked back in front of him, where a figure with an automatically domineering aura made his presence known. Peter frowned at him, and his scarred, purple skin. He had on bulky armor that shone gold, like his dad’s. He didn’t look anything like dad, though, and Peter didn’t like him whatsoever. He looked tiny and vulnerable next to Loki, who tucked his staff under his arm to reach up and rip off the mask-like thing keeping him from speaking. When he did, he threw it to the floor, and Peter watch innocently as he held up the blue cube to let the giant purple man observe, He smiled, and it caused Peter’s hair to stand on end. 

“You brought a friend.” His voice was more intimidating than his looks, He was now looking down at Peter, but Loki spoke up. 

“He’s a kid, and jumped on me when I was teleporting away.” Loki didn’t care, and didn’t look at him again. Peter’s legs shivered under his pants and shirt, chilly, damp, air brushing along his arms and causing him to hold his arms to his chest. 

“Move aside.” His deep and resonating voice stripped Loki of his ability to be a snark, and he stepped a large pace to his left. That left Peter standing along, in the middle of a path in front of the giant purple man. 

“What is your name, little one?” He stood, and took off the sharp helmet he’d been wearing. It revealed a bald head, with more scars on his scalp. Peter froze for a minute, a stilling fear closing up his throat. 

“P-Peter.” He forced himself to talk, answering his harmless question while his socks soaked up dampness from the ground. 

“Peter. Are you lost, Peter?” The giant guy walked towards him, no weapons in hand, but towering nonetheless. Peter stiffy nodded, not being able to muster the courage in his four foot body to speak a second time. 

The guy came and kneeled in front of him, and Peter saw close up, the jagged lines molded into his face, and his washed out purple eyes. With a single hand, he pulled the helmet off of Peter’s head, handing it to him. When Peter had left the tower in the gray cloud, and his vitals went haywire from fear, the little metal pack that wrapped around his torso like a brace of sorts, manifested into a helmet around his face. It was a replica of one of his dad’s, and made for emergency situations. 

“Don’t worry, Peter. You have a place here. I won’t hurt you.” He stood up again, and Peter didn’t trust what he’d just said. He looked terrifying, and Peter was confused as to what he meant by the “place” bit he said. Peter’s place was with his dad, at home. How far away was his dad? Did he know that he’d left his room? Was he going to be mad when he found him? Peter wasn’t supposed to leave his room, but Loki had gotten ahold of that thing that dad took away from him, and that was a bad thing, wasn’t it? Peter had only wanted to help. 

“Okay.” A little of his fear blew away from his pounding heart, but he didn’t lose it all. Beside him, Loki still had a strained and blank look on his face. 

“And you, you’ve succeeded. I didn’t expect that.” Loki had been holding the cube up for him this entire time, and the purple man took it, and crushed it in his hand. When he reopened his fist, he blew away the shards, and a small, glowing, blue stone remained. The guy smiled, and Peter made the bad connection between Loki being a bad guy, and working for this guy. 

“Yes, well, I’m full of surprises-” 

“Most of the time.” This guy obviously held a leash on Loki, as he was the only one that he didn't automatically make a sharp retort to, that Peter’s seen. 

“Daughters!” His voice grew to a loud boom, calling what appeared to be the two women that came in from behind Peter a moment later. One of the was mechanical looking, and blue. She had black eyes, a scowl, and was taller than her seeming sister, who was green, with red hair. They approached with a synced pace, and came to stand beside Peter. The green one looked down at him, and for a split second, Peter saw the same dark, empathetic eyes that his dad had. She looked away quickly, and up at her father. Peter formed a kind of funny comment about how colorful the group was, literally. He expected more people colored like striped of the rainbow to come walking out. Or maybe, that was just a thing with aliens. Were they aliens? They had human looking bodies. Maybe they were mutated, like Steve, or Bruce. 

“This little one, is Peter. Loki accidentally dragged him here. Take him for new clothes please. He’ll be staying with us.” WHen he finished speaking, the green one felt a pang of grim expectancy. She knew in an instant what this child’s future will be. He rounded, wide eyed face would lose naivety everyday from now on, and it will pain her to watch. 

“Of course. Come on, Peter.” She held a hand out for him to grab, which he did, hesitantly. Her skin was calloused and cool to the touch, but his was soft and clammy. She was the first to walk away, Peter in tow, and the blue one followed, leaving behind Loki, the purple guy, and the glowing blue stone. 

“Who are you?” Peter had a squeaking but quiet voice, and the three were now alone in a dark hallway, on the absolutely massive ship that they resided on. 

“Gamora. This is my-our sister, Nebula.” The blue one, Nebula, only glanced at him, wondering what would become of him. She noted how the hem of his pants dragged along the floor behind his feet, filling the hall with a shuffling sound. The blue girl was his sister now? DId that mean Gamora was, too? 

“Where are we?” His socks were soaked now, and some dirt showed on them too. His curiosity started to get the better of him, now that the purple man was nowhere in sight, and he looked around him to study the gritty moldings along the walls and ceiling. The place reminded him of Star Wars, and suddenly he couldn’t get that comparison out of his head. 

“Our ship. It’s where we live, and how we travel.” Short, but satisfactory answer. The trio turned to their left, and the lighting became better, and Peter saw more of what he assumed to be doors. They stopped in front of one, unlabeled like the rest, and Gamora opened the door. Inside seemed cleaner than the other places he’s been on the ship, and the large bed almost seemed cozy. It was neatly made, and there were various weapons mounted on the wall, and smaller ones on the desks pushed up against the walls. 

“Stay.” Gamora broke their grip, and Nebula stilled, standing tall beside him. Gamora went over to an odd-looking chest, opened it, and dug through its contents for a few minutes before pulling out some dark clothing, in exception of something green. The handful, along with a pair of boots, was thrust at Peter.

“Hold these.” Gamora had more things that didn’t fit her, but she’d give those to Peter later. “Follow me.” She stood back up, and led them out of her bedroom, and further down the hall. Peter noticed that she and Nebula both expressed an aura of cold, asocial habits. He wondered if they got along, but then again, they were sisters, so they must, right? If he had a sister, he’d love her a lot. 

“Here. You sleep here now.” He was getting a new bedroom? He liked his old one, with dad and mama-Pepper. He wanted to go home, and wondered if dad would be able to find him soon. He was really smart, so obviously he’d be able to find him. 

“Change into these. Put these in there.” She gestured for him to put his current attire in a dusty chest, in the corner. 

“Hurry up. We’ll be waiting outside.” The pair left, leaving Peter alone with the armful of clothing. He laid them out, and saw that there was a long sleeve shirt, pants, and simple shoes that were all a flat black. Besides that, there was a faded green vest that tied in front with very wide ties. He pulled off his yellow vest and thin cotton shirt, and replaced them with the black and green tops. After that was his pants, and the stretchy material was comfier against his legs than he thought they’d be. His socks were dirty, so he pulled them off and bunched them up in his small hands. He slipped the giving boots over his feet, noticing that they were as comfy as the pants he was given. 

He did as Gamora-his new sister?-told, and put his old clothes in that chest, before opening the door and rejoining them in the hall.   
“Come on. Time to eat.” 

About an hour later, after eating something he could only classify as fruit, Peter sat on a cold floor, a ways in front of a large seat, where Thanos sat. He’d formally introduced himself while Peter was eating, and now, Peter was playing with something Thanos had given him earlier. It was a block with moving parts, made of a silver metal and yellow inlaid stones, but when a button was pressed, two halves of it clicked apart. The hidden centers of each half had a button, that unsheathed long, slender but sturdy blades. The weapon scared him, as dad never let him touch the kitchen knives, because they hurt people. 

“If this is a ship, where are we going?” Peter had warmed up to asking questions, each answer coming patiently and almost. . . .warmly. 

“We’re looking for more of these stones. They’re very powerful, and they’re going to help me with a plan I have, to save a lot of people.” He wanted to save people? Peter shortly debated that that wasn’t a bad thing. He became confused. If Thanos wanted to save people using the blue stone that was inside that cube, then why did dad want to keep it away from Loki? 

Speaking of Loki, he was nowhere to be seen. Thanos didn’t seem to regard him in the same way he did Nebula and Gamora.They, along with the other four, even more alien looking people he met, seemed more willingly obedient to Thanos. Were they all really his kids? They didn’t look anything alike. 

Pete become accustomed to a sort of routine after a few weeks. He slept well, ate well, and was shown a few small fighting moves. He was told that he needed to be able to defend himself. Gamora, Nebula, Thanos, and the other four were doing a lot of stuff that his dad wouldn’t like. Giving him sharp stuff, teaching him to fight, and Peter also slept alone. It was the first time that he felt deprived of physical contact. His dad held him, slept with him, they watched movies, and now he had none of that. In fact, he had a few bruises on his legs from where he tripped when he was told to speed up his walking. 

This day was the first time since he got on this ship that they stopped somewhere. It was a planet, but he never saw it, because he was told by Gamora to stay in his room. It was eerily like the day that his dad told him to stay in his room, when Loki first showed up in their tower. When he got to his room he grabbed his helmet, and put it on, some of the familiar lights flashing before his eyes. 

“Hello, Peter, are you hurt?” Peter smiled at the familiar voice coming from the helmet. Karen, he named her, a very bland but known name. She was a system that talked to him whenever he put on the helmet. She was comforting, like a caretaker, and was made by his dad himself. He had a few of the systems in the tower. The one dad talked to was Jarvis, and the thought made Peter upset, because Karen’s constant voice these past few weeks muddied his memory of what Jarvis sounded like. He wanted his dad, badly. More and more he panicked when he thought of how long it would be before dad found him, and Karen had to calm him down by pulling up his dad’s set picture in her system. 

“I’m fine. They told me to stay here.” Peter had told her about his new “family”, at least that’s what they referred to themselves as. 

“Well, as long as you don’t get hurt.”


	3. Little Inventor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some time passes, pain for both Tony and Peter. But, Peter gains some interesting experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something I should disclose: In this AU, Tony’s AI programs have an online and offline mode. Offline, which Karen is, they can still analytics and store data and be extremely useful, but they cannot access the world web to consult data they don’t have. However, they can connect to different internet sources, not just the one they are coded within.

Almost as if it were giving Tony his first break, the world around him became calm after the events with Loki and. . . Peter. At this point, it was public information that Loki had kidnapped the six year old. He became a recluse of the Tower, where he and most of his family resided in solitude. Happy offered to buy game tickets. Rhodey hinted at in-person consultations with potential clients he knew. The answers were all similar. Send him an email. Call him. Meet with Pepper. Talk to someone else, anyone else. 

Pepper worried that his isolation would become volatile. That the alcohol would come back, that someone would happen to him that she couldn’t reverse, like Malibu. But, miraculously, Tony held on. There was something inside him that kept him from cutting that last lifeline. He never kicked Pepper out of where she managed to get in, to his emotional side. They stayed sleeping in the same bed, he maintained what could be called a sleep schedule, he let her hold him when he broke down. 

He was by himself in his lab, Pepper away at a board meeting, when he was thinking over something that brought him. . . comfort, of sorts. Whenever something bad was happening, Peter had his little Iron-pack. It was a bit like a small metal bookbag, with the straps connecting in front, and carrying the tech to encase his head and chest in his famous tech, should the need arise. There were defense protocols in the pack, along with a hidden system to keep Peter company. Until something unlocked it, the pack presented itself as a downgraded work of Tony, enough to be called a toy of Peter’s. 

The more Tony thought about that, each time, he grew more sure of the possibility of Peter being alive. With everything built into that suit, there was no way that Peter was dead. In all the movies with kids that young being stranded, the most common outcome was. . . slavery. Kids being taken and brainwashed to serve causes that they didn’t understand. Was that happening to his son? Transported to some otherworldly ship and found by fucking brutes that would hurt him? 

Tony sat back in his chair, and for once, he tried to think of Peter and actively not cry. He did fairly well, when thinking of Peter’s knowledge of survival. He was there through Tony’s transformation into a “superhero”, through Malibu, and now, the first battle of the Avengers. He wasn’t exactly without knowledge of this life, or how to navigate it, as much as a six year old could. 

Seven year old. It’s been three months and two days. Peter turned seven in four days. That cold, deadening realization is what ripped away Tony’s vision and grabbed him by the throat again. Just make it to your birthday. Make it to your birthday, my little Iron Lad. I know you’re alive, and I believe in you. 

After about three months, at least Peter thinks, he starts getting pushed around more. Taught more. Gamora, his adoptive sister, teaches him to fight. He no longer has an abundance of free time, and he collects weapons that Thanos brings him. He also knows how to build things. When they stop on a planet, reasons always unknown, Thanos carries back knives and clothes that are proportional to his height. 

Karen keeps him company at night, and thus her database grows. Sometimes Peter panics, realizes that his pack needs charged, and has to find one of the spots in the ship where he can hijack some wires. 

“And how did you do this?” Now, Peter is down in the room where he first played with the dual knives, now tinkering with some tech. Thanos regularly asks him about his intellectual development, noticing the most out of the entire crew how fast it comes along. 

“It’s a connection through a signal, instead of wires. So Karen can go back and forth between the helmet and here, and it makes stuff more convenient.” Peter was building a wrist interface for Karen, the curved device having been built from tech stolen from the most recent planet. Thanos brings him computers, highly technological weapons, anything that caters to his natural skill. He’d demolish them, and study their parts, and the first thing he made was a prototype of what he was making now. The main section went from his wrist to halfway to his elbow, and there was a little panel that slid out over the back of his hand. He’d been worried about the curve factor with the screen and main metal plates, but then one trip had been particularly bountiful, and Peter became thankful for the oddball parts that ended up being treasures. 

“There’d also be a hologram screen that came up if I needed it.” Peter would have to change a lot of the code to match the interface with Karen, though. He’d need to be wearing his helmet for that, so Karen could do a general override and “teach” him. 

“Wonderful.” Thanos encouraged him, just like his dad did. Sometimes, Peter would  
catch glimpses of Thanos being cruel to his adoptive siblings, but never to Peter himself. He gave him gifts and kindled his intelligence, so he wasn’t a bad person, really. 

“Thank you. I have another idea for something after this.” Peter was using a tool to lay down the necessary films under the screen, so that it actually became a working screen, when Thanos come over the kneel beside him. 

“And what is that?” He smiled ever so slightly at Peter, who sat cross legged, parts and pieces and tools scattered around him, poorly categorized. 

“Attachments for shoes, to make you fly. Like tiny, tiny jetpacks. It might be better to make them into boots, though. Doing just feet parts takes away stability because your ankles don’t have any support.” He thought of his dad then, and how the legs of his suit work. Instead of being separate sections, like plain solid armor, the entire thing was connected, with joints and adjusting bits, just like human joints and muscles. 

Thinking of his dad made him sad, nowadays. Peter had had no contact, no sight of him for three months, and the only picture there was, was the one Karen had. Not even a voice file. Karen could describe him, though, a little. She had memories in her database from when she was being created. She could recite some of the quips he’d make in the lab, and even played broken bits of the music he played. Peter could name them all, but there was a total of a minute and seven seconds between three songs that could be played. 

“I have to go do something. Will you be alright by yourself here?” Thanos asked him before he stood up. Peter looked up and nodded at him, his wide, dark eyes accompanying every expression he made. 

“Good. Keep working.” He obeyed, but because he enjoyed working. He loved finding new pairs of parts that worked together. It was like a puzzle. He loved puzzles, and puzzle cubes, and the like. Nowadays, he only did them by himself. Every so often, he’d try to coax Nebula or Gamora into doing one of his design with him, but they’d look at him for a second, and then deny him, and then leave. He felt so incredibly lonely and. . . abandoned. There was such a drastic difference between the Tower and this ship. The Tower had been so bright and lively, filled with clean tech and knick knacks and people that picked him up and played with him as soon as they saw him. He’d known every employee of the tower by name, and had a bad habit of trying to play Jenga with a lot of things that weren’t Jenga blocks. This place was dark, and cold, and damp, and Thanos was the only one that wasn’t outright mean to him. It didn’t seem like a cruel prison, it was just. . . different. 

On Peter’s seventh birthday, Tony kept away from alcohol, but he did cry, clutching a picture of Peter to his chest. They weren’t violent tears, manageable enough that he could work, with a little extra assistance from Jarvis. 

“Thor is out there, looking. He knows his way around up there, he’ll find something. He won’t come back until he does.” Tony knew that, and thought of it, often. He didn’t try too hard to imagine what the god could be doing right now, because that got his hopes up too far. 

It was nearing the eight month mark of Peter joining this new life when he was allowed to leave the ship for the first time. Gamora and Nebula were going to this weird space hotel-casino place for an information run, and Thanos wanted Peter to tag along with them. He wanted Peter to know more than how to put together flying boots and program hologram interfaces. He had Ebony for that, and Peter obviously had the brain capacity to do more than sit in his room and tinker. 

“We’re looking for this guy. He’s an underground dealer for these guys. He’s been double crossing them, but getting double intel. Finding him will lead us to this guy. We just need to track him down and find out where he has his meetings. We know he throws these giant parties, and then something around here happens out of the blue. That means whoever else he meets with, he meets with during these parties.” Gamora had been pointing to a few different faces on a screen while talking, and Peter mapped out a tree in his head, about each of the parties. He’d gotten a new outfit for this, bland on the outside, but it was simple clothing layered over armor. 

In the past few months, Gamora had been kinder to him. Nebula had been the opposite. Gamora told Peter that it was because she was jealous, but also told him not to repeat that to anyone. She’d been less pressuring and more guiding with her fighting lessons, and he came out with minimal bruises. Those were pretty much all thanks to his clumsiness. 

“What am I going to be doing?” For a seven and a half year old, Peter was very intelligent, and his memory mirrored that of a manual database, where stuff could searched and recalled instantly. 

“Observing. Taking in absolutely everything you can, but doing it while one or both of us is in sight.” Peter was to do nothing that would start an unwanted chain of events. He was still a clumsy seven year old, his brain was better than his body for the time being. 

“Do you want me to watch the guys you’re looking for too? But not suspiciously.” Gamora looked at him, the glint in her eye coming out, the one she had specifically for when he connected pieces. 

“Exactly. And you know that feeling you get when something bad is about to happen?” She waited for him to nod. “That’s when you come closer to one of us, or click the little blue button.” She was referring to the blue button that they and Nebula shared on the wrist devices Peter had made them all. Karen could be accessed by all three of them, which was an immense addition, now that Peter, pretty much Karen’s headquarters, would be joining them on outside trips. The blue button would alert them if he was in immediate danger.  
Like dad’s helmet. 

Doing this reminded him of Auntie Maria and Uncle Nick. Dad said that their job was to be sneaky and find out information about bad people. That’s what he was doing, so did that make him a spy, like them? It sounded cool, so he answered his own question with a yes. 

He had on his pack, but his wrist piece was covered with wraps, so he made sure to tell Karen not to become active unless told otherwise. She complied, and wished Peter luck on his mission. She seemed worried about him, but then he reminded her the kind of stuff that his dad made, was the stuff that he was carrying around. After that, she quieted with her complaints. 

Before they left, Peter had double checked their wrist devices, the audio and connection stability. They should be fine, especially given the “within sight” rule that Gamore set in place. 

When they had gotten there, and the plan was officially being carried out, the first thing Peter noticed was how this was both like and nothing like one of dad’s parties. He didn’t recognize a single person here, and nobody looked like him. Maybe they had the standard arms, legs, and head build, but they were just as if not stranger than the members of the Order. Yet, he could recognize what was regarded as fancy attire, or alcohol, and he did recognize some attitudes. With the fancy people, there weren’t a lot of them. The place seemed to be more for roughing around, and not discussing business. 

Like they talked about, Peter kept Gamora’s familiar green face in view as he went to an unoccupied corner of the expansive bar, and scrambled up to a high windowsill that overlooked space, just like he was looking into one of dad’s books. Peter knew that he couldn’t see stuff like this from space, and silently took a picture with his wrist. He decided that he would make an entire album for when his dad found him.  
Whenever that would be. 

After sitting for a few minutes, Peter saw Gamora shifting, her back to him, to a different area in the bar. He moved in sync, a ways away, with her, moving to a different window to take another picture. Nobody had said anything to him, but he had been getting shoved around already. That didn’t really bother him, he didn’t have a temper. In fact, Peter was the calmest of them. 

Across the room, Peter saw the main guy from the screen on the ship. He was looking at Gamora, and Peter noticed something a few feet away. Two oddballs were muttering, and he caught one red flag phrase. “Daughter of Thanos”. Just before he was about to send some sort of low-key signal to Gamora’s device, he spotted Nebula’s signature blue heading towards him. He heart rate slowed a little when he saw that things weren’t going wrong. Gamora didn’t even look at them, but Peter had the feeling she was aware of what was going on. 

Peter had collected some things from the chatter around him. One, Nebula was nearly as famous for sadism as their father. Two, the bar they were in was frequented by a band of “triggerheads” called Ravagers. Second of all, there was rumored scrutiny of said Ravagers from a pretty large-sounding group called Kree-or was it spelled Cree? Either way, Peter wondered if Thanos really was the worst guy people have heard of around here. 

Nebula was leaving with the guy, and Gamora with another. Peter knew that they would end up in the same spot, somewhere abandoned below them, where interrogation would go on, or until one or both of the targets died. 

Peter decided to wander around a little more, moving from party to party, eavesdropping for more tidbits until his sisters were done. 

Within the next hour, Peter learned stuff about this immediate solar system that his dad would be amazed to hear. Intergalactic gossip, about races and ships and materials and famous creators. Some, er, colorful stuff about nasty rulers as well. He only connected a few things, making a mental tree with a branch for each detail he got and processed. 

“Hey, kid. You look familiar.” Peter became a little alarmed when he realized a woman next to him was speaking to him. He became relived when he looked over and up, and saw that she looked like him. Actually, she looked more like Pepper than she did him. Her hair was blonde, and she had a fancy red and blue suit on, with gold pieces. 

“You seem a little young to be away from Earth. You know how far away from there we are?” She had a humorous look on her face that hid details of concern around her eyes. 

“I’m here with my sisters. I’m adopted, I don’t. . . remember anything else.” Gamora, months ago, had told him that if someone asked about his childhood, he was to say exactly that. And because she was really nice to him, he did just that. He trusted her. 

“How far?” That was a question he’d always had. How far away was his dad? Was the distance the reason he hadn’t found him yet? 

“You know how big a light year is?” She waited for a nod or shake of his head, and continued. “We’re almost a light year year and a half away from Earth. That’s pretty far, isn’t it?” Peter nodded again. 

“What’s your name?” She seemed really nice, asking simple things. She was certainly a lot more composed and. . . smarter than the other people who crowded this bar. 

“Peter. Uh, Stark.” At the mention of his last name, Red and Blue Lady furrowed her brows a bit, but just as quickly returned her face to normal. 

“I’m Carol. A little fun fact, we’re from the same place. Earth. Ever heard of Louisiana?” Peter smiled more happily this time, that being the first time another person had mentioned some place on Earth since he left.


	4. Emergency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanos introduces Peter to a new concept that he’s fairly reluctant to open his mind to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m getting so much positive feedback on this and I just wanted to say thank you so much for it all. 
> 
> Also, from here on out there’s going to be more focus on Peter’s story, but there will be a little insight on the events with Tony.

“Well that’s where I lived. I got powers, though, and decided to go around all these planets and help people.” Carol was like his dad! Not exactly like him, though, but Peter silently admitted that the red and gold was bitterly comforting. 

“Did you-” Peter got cut off when he heard his name being called from behind. He turned, and saw Gamora standing there, a blank look on her face. 

“She and I are from the same planet!” Gamora smiled at his excitement. He’d never really seen her do so. 

“Must be nice to see a familiar person.” She eyes glazed over for a minute, before she came back to reality, and looked at Carol. 

“Sorry. We had to take care of some business. He’s my brother.” Gamora wondered if Carol was part of the population that knew who she was. Even then, she kept her expression and posture cordial. She wanted to get Peter back on the ship, he must be a little stressed after being thrown headfirst back into interaction. 

“It’s all good. Cute kid.” Gamora agreed with a singular nod, and then took Peter’s hand. As they walked towards the entrance and through it, Gamora could feel the woman’s gaze on their backs. 

“The ones he was actively dealing to haven’t been informed of the situation. But, we found the inactive partner, and we found information on someone who can lead us to the power stone.” It was a basic synopses, and Gamora left out the woman that looked like Peter. Peter, who was standing on Gamora’s left, and Nebula on her right. 

“Wonderful. And what did our little one learn today?” Thanos would delve into details with Gamora later. Now, he looked expectantly at Peter. He spouted all the gossip he heard, about rivalries and rulers and races and miscellaneous tidbits that he found interesting. Gamora watched him while he spoke, noticing that his speech had gotten more tactical these past few months. Vocabulary being influenced by theirs, and speech patterns, too. Thanos looked pleased, noting the same thing that Gamora did. Nebula still didn’t care for Peter whatsoever. Honestly, she saw him as competition, the same way she saw her sister. 

“Seeing space was really cool too. It still is.” It was an innocent little comment, and Thanos smiled, the same way he smiled at Gamora and Nebula as children. Smiled, knowing that they would become his toys to mold and command. Knowing that they would grow up to kill in his name. 

“I’m sure it was.” From there, he sent Peter to his room, to change and eat. As his dad used to say, it was time for the adults to talk. His light feet pattered slowly along the floor, the echo almost inaudible. 

When he was back in his room, he put on his helmet, and Karen spoke first.

“How did your mission go?” He always warmed at the sound of her voice, the same way he did when dad or mama-Pepper sang to him at night. They way they used to. 

“Really good. Nothing went wrong. I met a nice woman name Carol. She said she was from Louisiana.” Upon naming the state, Karen pulled up a picture from her general info. It was a picture with a road going through a forest, some houses off in the distance. There was nothing really special about it, except for how bright the colors were. 

Peter then realized, that the only reason he saw Earth as special, was because that’s where he was born. He thought about how it was the same for every person they met, and the planet they were born on. Earth was just one of thousands of planets, and with all the distance they’d traveled, there was only one person he’d spoken to that saw his home the same way. 

Sitting on his bed, he curled himself against the wall, knees to his chest. His empty contentedness plummeted in a way that sent a wave of pain from his chest all the way to his fingertips. He ached more and more every day for his dad, and the memory of his voice had been growing dim. His, mama-Pepper’s, Uncle Rhodey’s, everybody’s. A fearful question popped into Peter’s head.  
How long does it take someone to forget a person? Years? Would Peter start to forget his birth family before they found him? Did they even know where he was?

Karen noticed his changing emotions, and spoke up gently. “Peter, is everything okay?” For the first time in a few weeks, Peter began to cry. Karen was the connection to his dad that he could hear. How long would her voice be his only true companion? He brokenly asked her to pull up his dad’s picture. He looked for a few minutes, just staring, studying, envisioning facial expressions and the jokes he used to make. He started listing stuff that he knew about his dad. 

He was a hero named Iron Man. He was an engineer and created some of the coolest things Peter has ever seen. His favorite band was AC/DC. He loved coffee, but was picky about the creamer. He always found a reason to sleep with Peter at night. He framed every physical picture they had. He learned how to play guitar, just to write Peter his own lullabies. They had the same ice cream flavor. He homeschooled him. He loved mama-Pepper, but they weren’t married. He was never married to his biological mother, either. 

With blurry vision and stinging eyes, Peter went to his dresser-chest, and pulled out his Star Wars shirt. Refusing to take his helmet off, Peter shed the clothes he’d been given, and put the long sleeve black shirt on, and the Star Wars shirt over that. It was solid gray, with the Resistance emblem on it. The ink it was printed in was cracked, flaking, and the hem of the shirt was worn thin and white. Changing into the most comfortable pants he had, Peter day back down, continuing his study of his dad’s picture.  
Forlornly, Peter reach a hand out, almost as if he wanted to try and touch his dad’s face. The image was 2d, though, and Peter only saw his hand behind the hologram. 

 

Trillions of miles away, Tony Stark was surviving. He was managing to live a life that had now been deprived of Peter. He was living a life and trying to piece it back together, each time it felt like it was falling apart. 

“Hey, you up to running some places with me?” Nat was leaning against the frame of a doorway, watching Tony mess with the design of a higher-capacity quinjet. It was more like a private Avengers plane than a jet. 

He looked back at her, taking a breath before answering. He had been alone until she snuck up on him, like she usually did. 

“Yeah, why not.” He swiped the hologram model back into some file, and closed Jarvis for the time being. 

Nat had wanted to go to the store, but they decided on a mall trip first. Tony felt the need to drop a ridiculous amount of money at designer stores. In the car, she had her feet up on the dash, wearing a bland outfit. 

“How’s the new facility going? Not making it into a giant cabin, are you?” She chuckled a bit, at her running joke. When Tony announced that he was building a new facility, not smack in the middle of the city, she started teasing him about his countryside dreams. The land it was being built on was surrounded by lush, beautiful woodland, which she was actually quite happy about. 

“If I ever have a cabin, it’s gonna be for Pepper and I alone, dearest of apologies.” He sighed, “But it’s going well. I have a pretty nice suite and lab for myself, and some closets for the rest of you hooligans.” She laughed, looking back towards the road. 

“No, you guys will have same as the tower, entire living areas, the works.” He turned onto the street that led to the three story shopping mall, overhead sunlight reflecting off the shining panels and glass ceilings and walls. 

“Oh no, that’s way too expensive for me.” Tony had to look at her to know that she was joking, and she burst out laughing at his exasperated look.He unbuckled himself, and they slid a pair of sunglasses over their eyes at the same time. 

Walking in was quiet, as Tony was only recently getting back into the social field. He let Nat choose the first store, and she led them to the first right wing of the mall, one of four wings, with three levels. She liked to buy her jackets at this store, the brand was good for lots of hidden pockets and non-scratchy materials. 

She had a green one off of the rack when Tony spoke up. 

“I signed up for group therapy. For, bereaved . . . parents.” She paused her study of the jacket, and looked to him. She held a subtly inquisitive look on her face, before changing it to a gentle, comforting smile. 

“That’s really good. It’s good.” Truth be told, Tony was so relieved to say it to someone, and Nat was joyous that he’d told her. She could tell by the way he looked around, that he was trying to rid his eyes of building saltwater. 

She bought the jacket, and then they moved to a different store, Tony’s choice this time. He only bought about ten different pairs of ridiculous pants. She watched him, knowing that sunglasses were a signature part of his emotional repression. Yet, he was getting better. At this point, Nat knew that Tony saw literal, down-to-Earth therapy as a last resort. She knew it means he’s hit rock bottom, but she could see in the moment, that he was choosing to climb back up the rock wall. 

“You gonna get any shirts to go with those? Your luxury walk in closet feels a little empty, I’m sure.”

“Oh, yeah. And shoes, and jackets. Some nice pretzel bites for everybody else.” In all actuality, Tony didn't buy anything for the other team members. They all had their own cards, if they wanted to go shopping, they can drive. 

 

“Any new gadget ideas?” Gamora was sitting with Peter in his room, where he’d migrated some of his tinkering parts. They were both sitting cross legged, eating some other strange fruit. Peter had been tasting a lot of new things lately, especially given his freedoms with planetary visits now. 

“Not anything new, but I’m building a computer. I need a hub for programming apart from my helmet.” He was currently picking at the keys, using a cautery pen to etch the letters and numbers on the squares. 

“That’s a good idea. Father doesn’t like the helmet.” She was right, he didn’t. Thanos saw it as an unnecessary relic from his home planet, and being unaccepting of his new “family”. Peter had stopped bringing it with him whenever Thanos wanted him to work the the throne room, so he was building the computer to replace it. It’d be another spot for Karen, though. Peter couldn’t work without her. 

A knock at the door halted their meager conversation. Peter hadn’t heard any footsteps approaching, but he was to correct to swiftly anticipate Thanos’s large form opening the door.  
“Peter. Come.” He beckoned him with a wave of his hand, and showed no reaction to Gamora being in his room with him. Gamora was perplexed as to what their father would want with Peter at this hour, than her stomach sank. Thanos had his own. . . late night project. And now, that’s why Thanos nurtured Peter’s talents. 

He wanted a work partner. 

She had to stop from grimacing as Peter stood on his wiry legs, and followed Thanos out of his room, and down the hallway. She quietly approached the door, and peeked out as he lead the boy down the hallway, towards Nebula’s lab.  
While Peter was following him, he didn’t speak about how the atmosphere seemed different this time. Cold, and calculating. Not currently interested in talking to Peter. 

They walked in silence for about ten minutes, strides leading Peter to a room he hasn’t been allowed in until now. When Thanos opened the door, Peter immediately became horrified. He stepped in, wishing for the blue button while he watched Nebula, floating in pieces, in the air above a table. Her arm looked like a 3d diagram, dismantled to the point of seeing every little screw that held the limb together. 

The worst part, was the mutilated part on her face. The area around her left eye was sliced open, battered, and bloody. Some looked like something from combat, but the slices going from her brow line straight to the back of her head looked methodical and done under control. 

“Your sister has qualities that need improving. Like an upgrade. You’re going to help me with that.” This was the first moment of unbridled panic and fear that Peter’s felt since he popped into this ship. He looked at the table, where some curved silver and blue parts lay, and he easily put two and two together. Nebula wasn’t always some part machine, she’d been born human. 

Their father had done all of this to her. This wasn’t like a removable suit that his dad had built, this was her flesh. Peter couldn’t imagine the pain it caused. 

“I’m installing this in her head. She’ll be in pain, but it’s for the better.” One stark difference between his “father” Thanos, and his dad, Tony, was how they viewed machinery. Dad always told him, with all his knowledge, that people weren’t machines, not even his AI programs. No level of code mastery could parallel a person’s emotions and complexity. You can’t create people, you can only nurture them. Thanos, he wanted only to apply his knowledge to combine the two. Nebula wasn’t his daughter, she was his experiment, and Peter found it sickening. 

“I have to cauterize her first, but then we’ll be putting her back together, together.” He looked at Thanos, holding back the chilling fear and urge to run away. His dad would despise this. 

Peter watched him use a red-hot tool to fry all of the bloody parts on her face, and then a rag soaked with something to wipe away the blood. Nebula made no sound, but he could see the tears running down her face. 

“Hold this.” Thanos handed him a silver piece, almost circular when looking at it straight on, but curved from the side, and some welding markings on the front. There was a longer, matching piece still laying on the table, and beside it, a pile of small things that looked a bit like screws. 

“Hold it right here.” Thanos grabbed his hand that held the metal piece, and used both of his hands to guide it to Nebula’s face and position it the way he wanted to. Peter could see the way it framed her eye, and lined up with the scored flesh of her face. It set down in, like a thick layer of skin had been totally peeled away. Peter’s stomach twisted with nausea. 

Thanos grabbed one of the screw-like objects, and held it to a very small opening in the metal piece. He pushed it in like a push pin, and Nebula let out a whimper, but held the composed scowl on her face. He continued with a few more of them, and with each one, they seemed to melt with the rest of the metal and erase any sign of a seam.  
Peter glanced in horror and denial at the other two pieces, similar in length, but differing in width. One was the silver metal, and the other was smooth and blue, like the rest of her.  
Looking at the lines along her face, Peter didn’t want to think about what besides her arm had been replaced with cruel parts.


	5. Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Gamora have a run-in with a funky group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the sake of events lining up, I’m pushing the events of GOTG back a little, so that they happen after Peter’s birthday.

The memory of that night with Nebula never ceased to make Peter queasy right off the bat. Even two months later, and even when that was the only time Thanos ever asked for his assistance. 

He ended up mustering up the courage to ask Gamora about it. She shut him down, telling him that that’s just what Thanos did, and there was no stopping him. Inside, she wanted to shut it out as much as Peter did, but there would be time where he uncontrollably replayed it, like it was impulsive.

To distract him, he had Karen play the song fragments that were stored in his helmet. He remembered only one of the songs vividly enough to piece it together. Shoot to Thrill, by AC/DC. It was pretty much his dad’s theme song. Peter had heard it on the television when his dad held a public event, every time he went down to his lab, every time he’d thrown a semi-drunken party. 

He replayed the nugget of that song on repeat, bathing in the sounds and how his dad would mouth-sing the song to him every time it came on. 

“Come on. Time to go.” At ten and a half months living on the ship, Peter went on his fifth trip with Gamora and Nebula. This was a mission with some major scavenging and sneaking around. Peter was good for sneaking around, and into small spaces. There was a building that they needed to map out first, because they were indeed going in mostly blind. Nebula had an upgraded arm that would be able to hack into hard and software, so they had the sneaking part pretty much covered. 

Peter stood up, getting his pack, and Gamora went over a checklist with them. Recently, she’d started praying that her implied compassion towards Peter would keep him from straying onto a path like Nebula’s. She didn’t want to watch another child turn into a corrupt, sadistic routine dictated by a psychopath. 

“Tech pack? Wrist communicator? Boots? Armor?” He nodded and pointed to each one. He felt like he was back with his dad, when they were packing for a small road trip and dad helped him pack all the stuff he needed to bring. But this wasn’t a road trip, this was them stealing stuff from dangerous people, and he needed to be focused and serious. 

Ebony beamed them down to a platform on the outer edges of this city, probably used as a landing spot for ships. The three of them appeared in uniform, taking the first steps towards the city before the blue light even dissolved. 

“There, that’s the capitol building.” Peter gestured to a building memorized from the files of this planet’s city. It was considerably nicer than the outer rings of buildings, and had large platforms that stuck out from the sides, not unlike the one they were on now. 

“No vehicle?” Nebula didn’t talk much when Thanos wasn’t around, only confirmations or sour inquisitions. 

“Not at the moment. When we get closer, I’m sure there will be.” Peter agree with Nebula’s silent point; it was a long way to the capitol. Half an entire city lay between them, and eerily, the structure of the buildings reminded him of his home, New York. Unfortunately, will the millions more miles that they’ve traveled in the past nearly eleven months, they’ve only gotten further from Earth. In the past few solar systems, nobody has even heard of the Milky Way. Peter now felt like his entire childhood was built upon a myth, forgotten or unlearned by everyone around him. Simultaneously, it all felt like a giant secret. Gamora said he wasn’t allowed to talk about his life before them, so now he only talked to Karen. A secret friend, a secret home that everyone wanted him to forget. Would he end up forgetting his dad, Rhodey, Pepper, Happy? Would there come a time where he didn’t associate holograms and advanced armor with a miraculous man that he called his dad?

As they walked, Peter felt the ridges and divets in the mechanical ground beneath his feet. He liked places like this, with technical lines and shining parts and bright lights. It seemed there was less and less to remind him of home, and distance did not make the heart grow fonder. Distance was making Peter grow restless, and disconnected, and touch-starved. 

“Look at that.” Gamora noticed an abandoned floater, grounded and leaning against the rail of the bridge leading off the platform. Floaters were what Peter called any kind of vehicle that, well, floated. It looked unused, but had some squashed boxes around it. 

“Convenient.” Peter noted, and started towards it. Gamora held him back via an arm on his shoulder, and tossed a little metal orb at the floater. It clanked on the metal body, and when nothing happened, Gamora started towards it. 

“It’s not convenient if we get electrocuted.” Okay, fair point. Peter should’ve thought of that, and scolded himself. He won’t be allowed to go out of the ship if he can’t do things right. 

The floater was a good size, so that they weren’t all cramped together. Peter sat between Nebula and Gamora, and his hand clutched a small bit of Gamora’s jacket. 

Things went like that for months. Planet stops, looking for this one little rock, with what seemed like a different direction each time. Thanos said it was like the blue one, except purple. He also said that each stone could do different things, one being able to control time. 

Peter learned a lot, in the first year and two months of being there. Not in a traditional sense, like with textbooks and math problems, but more. . . physical? He learned the visual and functioning aspects of technology, rather than the math behind it. He was taught ideals by the entire Order, ones that seemed a little spooky at first, but he came to accept them as normal. Whenever Thanos told Peter to wait on the ship, Peter would stay, and practice with a small spear he’d been given. Gamora taught him basic fighting styles, ones that she said were used to liberate all the people of the places they visited. 

“There are people that are starving, dying. I help them.” Thanos’s voice resonated around Peter as they stood alone, Peter with a screen in front of him, laying out pieces for a project for Proxima.   
“How?” Peter never really asked this much until now, when Thanos came back, and Peter noticed how he always seemed almost anxious, or just off in general. 

“I have to even out the distribution of resources. It’s hard, but necessary.” It seemed a little vague, but then again, he was helping people. Thanos said that struggle among races should be eliminated, made into history. That’s why he needed the stones, so he could do it all at once, instead of trying to go from planet to planet. It made enough sense to Peter. 

A year and a half after Peter had joined Thanos’s family, he saw his first war. His second, technically, but this one, he wasn’t sheltered from. In fact, Thanos encouraged him to watch. The planet had two main cities, and they’d been savagely ripping each other to pieces out of spite and the prospect of revenge. Thanos had his army, and let down two of those enormous, geometric pods, where the beastly creatures tore through the two native sides like paper. 

“All those families in the city are living in fear, watching the soldiers tear the world up by the roots for nothing.” Thanos had an odd way of comforting Peter, when he became nearly frantic, watching upfront how the raving army treated the people no differently than their own meals. 

“Just watch, Peter. This is never the only solution, but sometimes, you have to shove for people to give.” 

“You ready to go?” Pepper had a hand intertwined with Tony’s as they sat on a sofa, in silence. The last session had been. . . rough, in short. Tony went in between periods of smiling while talking about Peter, or not being able to see straight. But that’s how it went, right? Sometimes the pain could be handled, sometimes it couldn’t. It would get better. Tony wanted to see it as a form of self-control, but it wasn’t that. Self-control came after recovery. 

“Yeah.” Peter’s eighth birthday had passed, and now it was the second winter after he’d been taken. The two of them knew he’d made progress, because Tony could now go into Peter’s room, and think of Peter without hyperfocusing on that footage. He could close his eyes and think of the song he used to sing to him, think of when they finished their first little robot together, and how they named him “Gimmo”, because Peter couldn’t pronounce “Gizmo” yet. He could think of how a Star Wars reboot was in talks, without the stitches tearing, only being pulled at. 

And that’s what it was about, right? Recovery was being able to think of something that tore you in half, without letting it happen a second time. Without drowning in the feelings. 

“You coming too?” Pepper had come with him to nearly every meeting. From the very start, she’d always had her shit together more than Tony, but this had been a blow she couldn’t handle like a CEO. 

“Yep. Come one. Up we go.” She grabbed his hand, and pulled him up off the couch. The piece of furniture was one of many that had been newly purchased, following the wave of additions and renovations of the new facility. Cap, Nat, and the new guy, Sam, were all off somewhere, doing buddy-buddy business stuff following Fury’s funeral.

Working in a lab alone had never been so confrontational. 

“I’m going on a solo mission. Father’s servant Ronan assigned me to get the orb.” Gamora was explaining hastily to Peter, as she grabbed her collapsing silver sword. They’d finally found, through Ronan, a temple nicely hidden away, holding an even better treasure. And now, they’d gotten track of a Ravager that stole it, and were on a planet called Xandar. They’d taken a small ship down to land, as Thanos’s ship would draw much too much attention. 

“Just stay here, until I get back. Won’t take long.” It was the two of them, Peter now being not-labeled as Gamora’s apprentice. She was the most skilled of all the Order, so Thanos wanted Peter to share her combat talents as well as having his own intellect. He nodded, having brought an interface to make digital files on, for one of miscellaneous projects. 

Gamora left the ship, and Peter watched her walk off, into the bustling and clean city square. Their ship sat on the port made for visitors, while Peter sat on a window sill of the ship, going back and forth between his screen and the city. He’d taken so many pictures, having an entire album, just for when he got back to his dad. 

At the thought of his dad, Peter looked towards the sky. Gamora had told him that the place he came from, was an entirely different galaxy, and that if he looked in the right direction, he could see the frisbee-shaped spot of planets and stars. The thought had terrified him, and tears had sprung to his eyes. He knew by now, an estimate of what a light year was, and how many were now between him and his dad. 

A forgotten amount of time later, Peter’s attention was caught by movement in his peripheral vision. He looked over to see Gamora running, being chased by a guy in a reddish leather coat. She held a metal ball in her hand, or at least she did, until the guy threw a glowing red cord around her ankles. Peter resisted the urge to go out and help, knowing all too well that she could handle herself. He watched them hassle each other while still on the move, until two other figures intervened. There was a tall. . . tree? His arms were grainy and winding like branches, no, they were branches. He had a serene looking face, but his companion was the exact opposite. Tiny as hell, and Peter recognized with total perplexion, the markings and snout of a raccoon. He was wearing some combat-like attire, and was carrying a giant blaster. The little gun-toting rodent launched himself onto Gamora, and she stumbled aside, while Tree looked like he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. The entire scene became an effort against Gamora, and that’s when Peter acted upon his concern. Even if he wasn’t to get involved, he still brought his finished works with him, which now included his upgraded helmet and chest piece, jet-boots, wrist communicator, and a knife with two bits that came out of the blade, an intense laser going between them, strong enough to cut through flesh. He grabbed all said objects, and told himself that he probably looked ridiculous. He was a four foot, scraggly an awkward kid with too much weaponry than he should have his hands on, about to attack some people as if he knew what he was doing. 

He opened the door to the ship, hearing the gears move inside and then again when it closed behind him. The air around him was warm, but not humid, which Peter considered a good thing. He didn’t want to sweat any more than he had to.   
He sped walk towards the fight, and nearly broke out into a run when some beams of yellow-orange light started appearing around Tree and Raccoon. Gamora was unmoving, on the ground, and the other guy got sucked into the light. It trapped them hovering just above the ground, and when the light sucked Gamora upwards, her head slumped forward. Peter broke out into a run towards her, fully panicking. His boots clanked on the ground, and jumped off of the ground to grab on to her, before she got taken away. The light almost felt like it was pulling at him, which made sense, given it’s purpose


	6. Prison Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Peter and Tony enter transitional periods in their new lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s been so long hurgg, had a bunch of finals, college stuff, and started a new job so I’ve been stressed af but I graduated high school!!!! Yay me lmao enjoy this

The people in the ships looked like him, although none of them seemed like they were from Earth. They talked about it as if it was just another alien planet, when he’d asked about it.

Inside the prison, they were put through an intake, and Peter could hear the guys behind a display screen make sly or demeaning comments about each of them, in exception of Peter. He was the shortest behind the raccoon, and they actually had to ask him what his name was. He looked to Gamora, standing a ways away. She nodded at him. 

“Uh, Peter.” Gruffly, they clarified that they wanted his full name. “Peter Benjamin Stark.” They asked some other stuff, and for a second, Peter thought he saw the one guard’s expression soften, until a comment with a bad word was said, then it went back to hard. 

After intake, they were led to the actual prison area, where everyone seemed violent or just uncaring. They stayed in a semi-group, although they had no relation to each other. Peter looked around, tucked to Gamora’s side, and had the sudden wonder of where Nebula was. He hadn’t seen her when they got taken by the ships, so she must’ve stayed behind. Probably to tell Thanos and the other’s that their plans had gone awry. 

A big blue guy started approaching their miscellaneous cluster, and Peter backed up a step, in which Gamora responded by grabbing his arm and holding him in place. She had a tight grip, and kept her face level and sharp, without looking at him. 

The tree guy started to. . . pick his nose? The blue guy garbled a noise of pain, and while he fell to the floor and curled up, the raccoon, Rocket, started speaking to their audience. 

“. . . or more accurately, we go through you.” Strangely enough, Peter’s never been intimidated by a raccoon. But, he was good at implying a message of, “Try anything, you die.” 

After their unruly introduction, they continued to rooms, where Gamora broke off from the other three. The rooms were cold, too mechanical for comfort, or at least, they would’ve been at one point. Now, the absence of memory foam and comforters seemed normal to Peter. He missed his dad’s heated mattress. He missed the fleece throws that Rhodey and Pepper never failed to bring home for him. 

In the guise of fear, Peter sat on the bed beside Gamora, and moved himself tight against her side. She was keeping a tense body to keep from acknowledging the group of prisoners outside their room, yelling obscenities at her. She draped an arm around Peter’s shoulders, silently telling him that this was another bump, that they would be fine. 

The groupies left, leaving them in the room, where they stayed the rest of the night. Almost the rest of the night. At one point, Peter woke up to shuffling, and excited chatter. A smaller selection of the ugly groupies had gotten into their room, and now stood over Gamora and his sleeping form on the mattress. He was on his side, she on her back, and the brutes stood looking down at them, battered weapons in hand. He jolted awake, and cried out. Was Gamora awake? 

She was, and Peter realized that she was staying still, due to one rusty blade being held to her neck. 

“Get up, Gamora.” The men all looked human, although the one looked like someone had poured acid over his eyebrows, making his skin look fake. She complied, and lifted herself off of the mattress, but told him to stay. 

“Don’t touch him, or you won’t win this.” A growl had worked its way into her threat, but it didn’t mean much to them as Peter watched them guide Gamora at knifepoint out of the room, disappearing down the hall. The yellow-tinted “door” closed behind her, and Peter stayed frozen on the bed, wondering how to react to what had happened. He comforted her with the thought that it wasn’t like she hadn’t been in this situation before. He laid back down, on his back this time, wondering how many shapes and faces he could make out in the marks on the ceiling.

As he lie there, a little nugget worry planted itself in his chest, and he had to smother down the worry that something would happen to her. She was an assassin, after all, she could handle herself. Or maybe, it was Peter’s subtle attachment issues making themselves more known in the wake of fear. He was a child, it was logical to find someone to fill the circle that had gotten ripped out of his chest following being taken from his father. Gamora, Peter could tell, wanted as away from her father as he wanted back with his. They got along well, and with how Peter was starting to see Gamora, he wondered how she saw him.  
~  
“How about you, Tony? Has there been changes in how you’re functioning, say day to day? Have there been a lot of shifts in behavior?” A nice thing about this group is that they didn’t alienate him. Granted, at first, everyone felt out of place. Everyone was on their own iceberg, the cold and loneliness isolating them from everyone else in the room. But now, everyone was acquainted enough with each other that they could ask questions about their children, and now, the fifth session, Tony wasn’t a billionaire, Iron Man, or a former weapons manufacturer. He was Tony, who lost his son Peter. He was a dad, an engineer at most, who lost his little one. Just like everyone around him, and their grief, he simply was. 

“I’ve uh, started rewatching the Star Wars movies. I think that counts. A reboot is being made, I’m a little excited for that. I guess I’ll just have to judge the movies for him. For Peter.” As confidently as he said it, Tony felt the heat spread through his nose and eyes, closing around his throat. This wasn’t an escape, he reminded himself. It was simply navigating. 

“Yeah, I heard about that too. I hope they have some of the original actors.” Etta sat beside him, opposite side of Pepper, and when Tony looked to her, he could tell that her teenage daughter did as well. He nodded in agreement, and that was that.  
~  
“You sure? If you want Nat, or Happy. . .” Tony almost sneered at Cap at his suggestion. 

“I’ve been hoarding them. They have lives, I don’t think I’ve made you suffer quite enough.” Tony patted his shoulder, standing straighter as they both looked down on the floor, covered with boxes labeled with Peter’s name. They sat, heavy as Tony’s heart, but he’s gotten this far, hasn’t he? He stepped forward, and picked up the first box, readying himself to carry it down to the plane for transportation. 

That memory had been months ago. The new facility had been finished, furnished, moved into. Everyone had their bedrooms, even the newcomers, following Ultron. He was here, sitting in Peter’s old bedroom, looking over the strangely bare walls, a smile on his face. He tried to smile more often. 

He noticed the lighter strips where shelves had been mounted. He gazed at the patch on the wall that had to be re-drywalled following a failed attempt at an entertainment stand. With every stain, nick, screw-sized hole in the wall, Tony heard giggles. Peter, in glee at whatever form of amusement Tony provided for him, whether intentional or not. This was the last day he’d be in this room, this building. All of Peter’s boxed belongings were cleanly and carefully put away in an otherwise untouched bedroom at the new facility. Sooner or later, he’d go through them. But for now, he stood, leaned against a wall, and whispered a little “I love you” to the wall. This building held many things, held so many precious things, and leaving them behind would be packing his own box. Not to pack it away, or forget things, but certainly to keep clean. Just like his physical environment, he was packing a box, and opening new doors.


	7. Purple and Painful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter thinks he’s relaxing into a new sort of lifestyle with his new sort-of family, when really, it was all just another calm period before a new storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it’s been so long!!!! I had to back out of my dream college and apply to a new one, with a completely new major, and that fucked me up for a while. I get scheduled a lot at work, my support animal passed away, and a family relationship got cut. I’ve been going through some shit but I’m working on getting a lot better and picking this back up is making me feel better!!! Hope you like it!!!
> 
> Some notes about the whole story: Tony’s timeline differs from Peter’s, like the jumps between events are different, but soon, they’ll line up so that the describes events are happening at the same time.

Peter has a child’s mind; it made sense that he usually reacted as such to such extreme situations. His inventive intellect may have been able to keep up with how he was thrust into this new life, but his creative side was not. He bounced along with the prison break and the flying and the battles and this whole deal with an orb? It perplexed him. He could make the gadget, metaphorically, but not logically grasp what it was for. 

All of it seems erratic and odd and he wonders if this what his dad lives like. It almost opened his eyes, what his dad had been known for. All this dangerous stuff that made his heart race and fear for Gamora, and slingshotting his sense of judgement back and forth. 

When they’d been flying towards the enormous ship in the sky, seemingly bigger than the old tower he lived in, his head bounced around too much, and his forehead striking the side of the interior was the last thing he remembered. 

When he woke up, everything hurt, burned, and the overwhelming amount of sensory input was the acrid smell of smoke and the feel of it in his eyes. His head throbbed, enough that he thought it was physically pushing against the inside of his skull. 

His thin body was bloody, the red seeping into clothes, and the longer he was awake, the longer he felt the screaming and hot pain exclusive to his left thigh. It felt as horrible as his head. Around him, there were chunks of debris, and people standing. He brought a hand up to rub at his eyes, in an attempt to rid them of the dust and dryness. 

Being able to see better now, he craned his head up, following with his torso, and saw Gamora‘s form surrounded by the others. The other Peter was doing something odd with his body, like he was dancing, but not. . . well. He stopped abruptly, saying something about a distraction, and then from his left, he heard the vibrating sound of a weapon being fired. The bright burst was aimed at the blue guy’s hammer, and the silver, in opposition of the light, fractured into hundreds of dense pieces, and Peter watched them scatter, becoming another addition to the black and gray chunks all around him. 

From the hammer, a purple stone emerged. It was one of those glowing ones that Thanos had told him about, he realized. It flew through the air, the glow fluctuating, and the other Peter reached his hand for it. Peter could tell immediately that that was a bad idea, and he winced in pain as he cringed at the awkward reach. 

When Peter’s hand grasped the stone, almost immediately, his hand turned dark and the skin cracked, revealing webs and veins of purple that spread up his arm like a glowing transfusion. He shuffled backwards, staying on his rear so as not to piss off his thigh. Peter wondered if it was broken. It certainly felt like something major was wrong, and he wasn’t going to risk standing on it. 

Peter watched Other Peter be engulfed by the purple veins, and the little stream of dark smoke the accumulated alongside it. It was hard to watch, it looked like he was going to be torn apart. 

At the last minute, Gamora struggled to her feet, eyes trained on Other Peter, and his current occupation. She looked scared, and more than a little brave. She reached out a hand to him, and opened her mouth to say something, although Peter couldn’t hear what it was from where he was sitting. 

In slow motion, or out of pain and struggle, he reached his arm out to meet hers. Through the connection, a flood of the same brilliant purple cracked her, and she silently cried out in pain. He could imagine what she sounded like just by watching her face, he didn’t need to actually hear her voice to start screaming for her. He tried to stand up, but that was a mistake, as a branding wave of pain wrestled him back to the ground. All he could do was sit there and watch as the four of them, excluding Groot, made a chain link with their arms, all experience the overwhelming nature of the purple stone. They all looked like breaking statues, the light flooding them like a visible manifestation of the perseverance they so believed in. 

~ 

“Got a pretty sick collection going there, don’t you?” Little Peter, as the newfound “Guardians” have dubbed him, was working on a little piece of technology that was a little less “Kill People For Money”-esque than Rocket would like. It was a little part that would go in his helmet, and sync it with the armor he’d be crafting in short time. It was all based on his dad’s tech, and also some notes he took on the technology of both the ship and Big Peter’s helmet. His dad would love what he’s been working on. He’ll get to show him one day. 

He’s said that aloud several times, throughout the course of the near month now that they’ve all been together, but the responses have been feeble. Empty encouragement, not for the sake of lying, but for the sake of not hyping up a topic that could easily become a sad story. 

“Mhm.” He wasn’t very chatty when working. The conditions he was under a year ago conditioned him to work best in silence, in a dark room. Where he was at now was a nice change in scenery. A lot more depth, and a lot less overpowering narcissism. Well, Big Peter was still a bit narcissistic, but at least he wasn’t a genocidal motherfucker. 

That’s what Peter started calling him, him, being Thanos, after hearing it from Big Peter. Gamora yelled at him for saying said “potty word” and he kept it quiet from then on. Gamora and Big Peter kinda reminded him of his dad and Pepper in a way. Trigger happy guy with an ego and the lady that doesn’t hold back from keeping him in line, whether it be with words or actions. 

Peter had been trying to make conversation with him, or at least functioning on a cycle between him and Groot. They were both seen as essentially the same, in exception of needing to be a little lighter on the feet and firepower around Groot. When one was napping, he usually went to the opposite for conversation. 

~ 

“Delivery is here.” No reply. A little soothing silence, notably less cold than the old estate, sat between them. It was an honest silence, not one that inspired irritation anymore.  
“Tony.” That got his attention. He’d become fine tuned to second replies. Delivery? He’d forgotten what personal items he ordered. Usually company packages through other people, he was only ever sent an email or told by FRIDAY that they’d been delivered, because God forbid anyone not know that that’s the only thing he wants to hear. 

“Right on it. What is it?” He looked at her with a tired and funny little expression, to which he replied a smile. 

“The painting, Tony.” Her voice was softer, with the description, knowing what she was saying. 

About two months ago, the two of them had contacted an artist for a painting. Said artist had skill in converting sound to color, it was some sort of condition she had. They emotionally explained and asked her to paint the song that Tony had always hummed Peter to sleep with. Tony had kept himself anonymous, or used a fake name rather, to keep from putting any pressure on or putting the artist in an awkward position. He’d keep the painting a secret possession, nothing to be photographed or seen by strangers. It would be his family’s memory and theirs alone. 

“Right. Coming.” He shut the interface off, not expecting to come back for a while. He’d probably no come back the entire night. Pepper stood, bare footed and comfortable, but still haggard looking at the idea of leading him down to something that would inevitably bring him to tears. She could feel it coming already, and it twisted her stomach. She knew that she’d cry too. Peter was her son just as much. She loved him to death and back. 

~ 

“I told you! I fucking told you we shouldn’t have brought him!” Big Peter, or Uncle Peter, and Gamora were fighting, quite nastily. Pointed fingers and bared teeth and jabbing comments being thrown around. It was over Little Peter laying on the table between them, his left arm pulsating, red and purple and swollen, veins inflamed and venom working it’s way towards his organs. It had been the mission they just went on, and it had gone spectacularly awful. Hence, Little Peter on the table, doing what they thought was being dragged towards a throbbing death. 

It had started out as a call about an infestation. Granted, they weren’t exactly Galactic Terminators, but it sounded like the usual unusual thing they got contacted for, so they said “Why not?” and went on their merry course. 

It was a capitol building, and it had been overrun by astonishingly large, arachnoid mutated. . . things. Slightly humanesque, minus the other arms and nasty faces and “lightly” aggressive personalities. They had disgusting teeth, and the dozens of them that there were ranged from the size of a small child to that of the original Groot. 

When they arrived at the planet, the blurry pictures hadn’t done enough to describe the situation. It was like zombie-fied and bloody Anarchists were trying to overthrow the whole planet. From above, the city looked like it was rotting, from the center capitol building outwards. 

They all got chills from it, from the color and the sounds and the way that from far up, it looked like an anthill crawling with the rapid things. 

The bright idea was to have Litter Peter, Genius Junior, stay up on the ship with Mantis and Groot, while the rest of them went down to the heart and did what they could. Little Peter has become quite skilled at control, design, and mechanics when it came to the ship. He studied techniques and applied them to his budding suit or the ship, or used patterns from both to create his own, and thus he had become a bit of master that overshadowed Rocket, even. 

They hadn’t anticipated the intellect of the damn things. They were first noticeably experiences with combat, being quick on their feet and quicker to dodge their attacks. Some even wielded weapons. 

About a half hour in of hunting them down, about a third of the way through the estimated amount, is when shit hit the fan, so to say. From the unspoken of basement, or more accurately, base-city, dozens, if not hundreds, erupted and launched themselves at the intruders. They screamed at Peter to get closer, and start his whole part of the game plan. He used the modified ship to shoot at the creatures. He was swift and accurate, using the real-time tracker to rid them one by one, getting several a minute, but not going near his teammates. He was rigid, and afraid, and trembling in his seat, being watched over and soothed by Groot and Mantis. Mostly Mantis, as Groot was in his own little world. His vision kept going between the map in front of him and the sight of the city right above that, so he could stay grounded, in a way. 

That’s where the jump came in. He’d wandered too close to a tower, two inhabitable spires connected by some neatly designed sky bridges closed off from the high sky via glass. Some of the mutants had seen the ship, crawled up, narrowly missing the young peripheral vision of Peter, despite his intelligence and prodigal observation skills. One, a large one, threw itself off the bridge, having enough leg power that it wasn’t until too late that Peter saw the dark bridge, the wing of the skip dipping under weight and throwing off the map and his focus. A second one followed. The large one scrambled towards them, seeing them through the glass, and wanted to sink its teeth into whatever they had to offer. 

It had its claws on the glass, screeching and scratching, before Peter was stable enough to steady the ship again. He hoped that their little issue had been noticed by the rest of the team down there. With a gross and terrifying crunch, the thing sank its hands into the glass, splintering and riddling its hand with thick pieces. It didn’t care about pain so much as it wanted to kill him. 

It ripped a bigger hole in the glass like it was fabric, and made room for a makeshift entrance while Peter locked the controls and grabbed the only weapon he could get to in time. It was a replica of Big Peter’s blaster, one that he’d made after putting all his modification ideas together into his own version of the weapon. It was pretty much just a second prototype, not indestructible and not eternally functioning. It doesn’t have everlasting ammo or power. 

Peter grabbed it his with his slender hands, the smooth and still child-like build dangerously contrasting with the build and obvious purpose of the gadget. He threw a few hits at the big one before it went down, due to a lack of a brain. The little one behind it, though, used the big one as a shield, and launched itself at Peter. It was smaller than him, and lacked the fire power he had, but it didn’t mean shit as soon as it sank its gross, discolored, shiny teeth into his arm, right above his wrist. The pain went through ever nerve, as the teeth went as deep as bone. They were in for only a few seconds as Mantis did the immediate thing she knew she could and jumped onto its back. Wrapping one arm around it’s neck, and placing the other arm’s hand on its head, keeping hold as it bucked. After a few more seconds, pain and heat flowing steadily up his arm, it collapsed in an exhausted manner, not quite the mental match for Mantis. It’s jaw loosened, and the teeth slid out with a squelching noise, and it fell to the ground. He felt satisfied, until he felt sick, and cold, and then felt the metal floor meet with him in a painful manner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The artist I referenced for this is Melissa McCracken! She is extremely talented and makes wonderful creations! Here is the Vice article I read on her a while back: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyxq73/melissa-mccracken-synesthesia-painter-interview


	8. Artwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this isn’t a spoiler, it’s just some concept art that I made while away for Peter’s upcoming suit he makes for himself, based off the Iron Spider suit but with more of a twist to suit the story. It’s more so you know what it looks like. 
> 
> 🌟


	9. Run Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter recovers from his attack in a fascinating way, and the entire team works on tracking someone down after hearing a rumor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter bc I’m super excited to write the next one lol

It took Little Peter a while to wake up. A few days, of cleaning the pooling sweat, a few days of them not knowing whether to keep a blanket on him, cool him down, giving him steroids, and so on. For days he trembled in a semi-coma, his arm returning to normal, except for four dark, patterned marks surrounded by permanently darkened veins. 

They almost left the planet almost too fast to collect the inhabitants end of the deal, after saying a steady “Fuck it”, and dropping bombs. There was vast architectural damage, but the invaders were taken care of. The people were grateful enough and gave them unlimited treatment for the little one, the only reason they remained.

While Peter lay on one of their tables, recovering from whatever was done to him, the toddler-like Groot kept him company, and Big Peter kept some of his, as Little Peter referred to it as, his music that was “cheesy, and not in a good way.” Peter was used to, and wanted to hear more of, harder rock and not the stuff that Other Peter played. He wanted to hear his dad’s favorite bands, which were just about nonexistent this far out. 

It was while Peter was still out, that they heard the news of Nebula. On this planet, many people came and go to larger ones for events or trading. They never failed to bring back loads of news and stories, as many as they did items and materials and foods. 

It was one trader that came back, stopping by to visit their guests, that she quietly slipped to Gamora, famous Gamora, that there was a rumored death of her father. A gruesome, apparently nauseating sight of a beheading by the hands of a familiar-sounding blue cyborg. She told it with relief in her eyes, framed by the worry of telling this to the green woman. The wrinkles and lines smoothed out when said woman uttered a small, “Finally.” 

Now, Gamora, darkly brought-up Gamora, could live, breath, speak in peace and relief, raise her little Peter in harmony alongside the others, knowing the man who almost conditioned him the same way, is dead. He would never influence or make others influence his young life again. 

Gamora looked down at Peter, and knew that she was responsible for him. From here on out she would actively choose to raise, protect, and feed him as every child deserves. She would not even let Thanos’s influence on her, affect Peter. He had been through enough and she would do her damnest to give him what little childhood he had left, back to him. 

~

In a month’s time, Peter had become the oddest nine year old that anyone had generally met. The attack from the mutants left him nearly invincible, superhuman, and with a clearer head than he’d ever had. The sensory input from his heightened senses was overwhelming at first, causing panic and confusion, but then he learned how to hone it out, picking which sensations to focus on and process. With the forced maturity of his mutation, came an impressive brain capacity and hyperactivity that left him absolutely infatuated with his technological abilities. They advanced at the speed of light, and soon enough, he’d gotten to making his own suit. 

It was partially made of plates, partially made of nanotech. The plates would be sections that stayed in place, making for a more casual armor that the nanobots could scuttle back into when the full suit wasn’t being used. 

Visually, the suit was a bit of a mess. He did what he could with what he had, which consisted of many differently colored metals from many different places. The welding seams were uneven, the surface not very smooth, and burnt and mottled. In the end, Peter decided it would be a prototype. A very complex, advanced prototype. A prototype that took him, even being his father’s son, months to make. Going back over the whole thing as if working in layers, retouching and perfecting little details. When they were in remote locations, he’d test the flight. Late at night, when he was cramped on the ship, he’d be in his room, sitting in front of a screen for hours, coding and programming. He started having the longest conversation he ever had with Karen. His memories of home were hard to focus on and distant, but her artificial memory was flawless and could tell him nearly anything he asked. She’d been around even before he had that protective armor, she’d been made almost immediately after he was born as a double protective measure. She could tell Peter what he ate for breakfast every single day, the brands of every piece of clothing he wore, every time he cried or every time she was actively protecting him from something. Unfortunately, she was never made for looser or recreational purposes like Jarvis. She couldn’t play music, or bring up a game, or something silly that Peter’s dad would’ve asked her to do. She was made to care after Peter and that was it. 

During this whole engineering process, the adults were all discussing Nebula. Gamora’s sister, who had apparently snapped and ended their dad’s life. She was desperate to find her, given their last encounter, and wanted nothing but to hold her and bring her into this group that she’d come to love.

“She’s out there, not knowing where we are, with the worst kind of blood on her hands, and Thanos’s minions are probably after her!” She was on the verge of shouting, thinking about the Black Order and everyone else that was loyal to him, likely already aware of what had gone down. For months they’ve been tracking, going from ship to ship to people to planet, asking if they heard anything. The closer they got to the planets from Gamora’s earliest memories, the more saturated their knowledge was. The closer to those planets, the closer to her sister.

Peter wondered, when he overheard a conversation between them all, if Nebula remembered him. He thought it likely. Standing there while Thanos had been literally dismantling her was haunting, and he doubted that they’d over forget each other’s faces. More than that, what would happen if, or when, they found her? He knew there was a lot of unhealthy waters between Gamora and Nebula, would she just disappear again? Or would she stay for a bit? Peter hopes she’d stay. She deserved a chance after living with him, the same as Peter himself had gotten.


End file.
